WE ARE THE REVOLUTION
August 24, 2023–March 30, 2024 | Schnitzer Collection, Portland, Oregon (inaugural public exhibition)
Curated by William Morrow, Director of Exhibitions, Schnitzer Foundation, and Christian Viveros-Fauné, Converge 45 Biennial Guest Curator.
In the 1972 print We Are the Revolution, the artist Joseph Beuys faces the viewer confidently. Standing more than six feet tall, he strides firmly into the future while encouraging others to do the same. Designed as a poster for a 1971 Beuys exhibition in Naples, Italy—the original print reads La rivoluzione siamo Noi—the work currently serves as the title for a remarkable, once-in-a-lifetime, curated exhibition of Portland’s premiere collection of contemporary art: the expansive holdings of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation.
An anchor event for Converge 45’s citywide 2023 biennial, Social Forms: Art as Global Citizenship, the exhibition We Are the Revolution taps into a living history of social expression through art in diverse media—from monumental paintings to free-standing sculpture to works on paper. Designed in part to explore ways in which the art of the past meets and affects the art of the present, the exhibition gives voice to art as both social commentary and aesthetic experimentation from the 1960s to today. Driven by the conviction that history is constructed through both continuity and discontinuity, the exhibition strives to establish unexpected juxtapositions and reveal connections among historical and contemporary artists and artworks.
ARTISTS:
Joseph Beuys (German; 1912–1986)
Roy Lichtenstein (American; 1923–1997)
Robert Colescott (American; 1925–2009)
Robert Indiana (American; 1928–2018)
Andy Warhol (American; 1928–1987)
Jasper Johns (American; b. 1930)
Roger Shimomura (American; b. 1939)
Bruce Nauman (American; b. 1941)
Charles Gaines (American; b. 1944)
John Buck (American; b. 1946)
Jenny Holzer (American; b. 1950)
James Lavadour (Native American, Walla Walla; b. 1951)
Joe Feddersen (Native American, Colville Confederated Tribes; b. 1953)
Polly Apfelbaum (American; b. 1955)
Alison Saar (American; b. 1956)
Ellen Gallagher (American; b. 1965)
Robert Rauschenberg (American; b. 1966)
Dinh Q Lê (Vietnamese American; b. 1968)
Kara Walker (American; b. 1969)
Derrick Adams (American; b. 1970)
Rob Swainston (American; b. 1970)
Mickalene Thomas (American; b. 1971)
Vanessa German (American; b. 1976)
Titus Kaphar (American; b. 1976)
Hank Willis Thomas (American; b. 1976)
Kehinde Wiley (American; b. 1977)
Zorawar Sidhu (Indian; b. 1985)
Swoon (American; b.1977)